About

For the last twenty years, Swarthmore College has hosted an annual conference (formerly the Sager Symposium) on a current topic for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community. In the past few years, symposia have explored sexual politics in the bedroom, boardroom, and classroom, queer media, coalition building across queer differences, queer people of color, the intersections of race, religion, and gender, queer activism, same-sex marriage and queer families, and transgender movements.

Swarthmore College's annual Queer and Trans Conference (QTC) is a student-run, free, and public conference that explores critical topics of queer and trans thinking, playing, working, organizing, and living. The planning committee is a group of students committed to radical queer and trans community building and justice. Each year we invite a group of activists, scholars, and artists to join queer and trans students, faculty, and staff and their friends from Swarthmore College, nearby schools, and the greater Philadelphia area for a weekend of learning, discussion, and performance around a theme relevant to the histories and lives of our communities. We invite a diverse group of presenters who will help us to re-center queer and trans discourse around voices and perspectives marginalized by mainstream gay rights movements. Our conference spotlights the fabulous work of queer and trans people of color, people with dis/abilities, indigenous, poor, and (im)migrant people. When possible, we bring individuals and groups who live and work locally and those who are structurally denied access to resources available to us at Swarthmore.

In past years, conferences and symposiums have explored sexual politics of the bedroom, boardroom, and classroom; queer media; queer coalition building; the intersections of race, religion, and gender; queer and trans activism; debates around same-sex marriage; and queer families and homes. This year's conference, "Resisting Violence, Building Queer Safety," seeks to address and begin conversations about safety in queer and trans communities.